208 KIRTLAND'S WARBLER 



you will hear the song and see the singer with wings slightly lowered, 

 tail drooping, and plumage fluffed, but with the body erect and head 

 thrown back, uttering earnestly and very forcibly Chip-chip-che chee 

 chee-r-r-r. The first two notes are soft and short, the next three 

 uttered rapidly, increasing in volume and ending in a clear ringing 

 whistle on the r. The male of a pair that seemed to be courting (See 

 Bull. Mich. Orn. Club, Vol. V, 1904, 6.) had a different song, more 

 like Wichy-chee-chee-chee-r-r. This song was not so loud and ring- 

 ing but was very sweet and clear. This male lit and sang low down 

 in the jack pines many times. One male, with a worm in his bill, 

 sang, at intervals of fifty or sixty seconds, a song which sounded like 

 Ch-ch-che-che-che-ah, the ah long drawn out. When I found the 

 nest, this male came down to the tops of the small jack pines and sang 

 rapidly as though much excited by my presence, and this song seemed 

 then to take a scolding tone, like Che-che che-chee-wich-a-a. All of 

 the males have a sharp call note chip-chip; and the females the same 

 chip only lower and softer. 



"On the morning of May 6, 1905, near Ann Arbor, I had the 

 pleasure of hearing a fine male sing a different song of the same 

 general character, but softer and not given with the intense earnest- 

 ness of the breeding bird. It sounded as though he was singing to 

 himself and not at you. It had much of the r and z quality and I give 

 it tsip-tsip, chse-chse-e-e. In its summer home it sings from morning 

 till night; only not so frequently through the heat of the day, from 

 the time of arrival in May, and through June it is in full song, and 

 when I left on July 15, it was still singing. They leave their summer 

 home the first of August, when the females and young start south. 

 The males are content to linger and old ones were seen as late as 

 August 20, 1903, and September 3, 1904. These were the last ones 

 seen by Mr. Parmelee, who lives near their nesting grounds. 



Nesting Site. — "The nesting site (See photographs in Bull. Mich. 

 Orn. Club, Vol. V, 1904, pp. 4, 7, 11) is usually in a dense growth 

 of small Jack pine and scrub oak; not always at the foot of one of 

 these trees but as a rule, under one and protected by its shade. Here 

 the bird excavates a site and in this hole builds its nest, the top about 

 even with the ground, sometimes with a rim, making the nest cup- 

 shaped. 



Nest. — "These birds return each year to their chosen locality and 

 no doubt to a spot near the site of the previous year. About fourteen 

 inches from the nest shown in the Bulletin is a nest of the year before. 

 In June 1904, all of the colonies described in the Bulletin contained 



